


fly on the wall (tell me, what do you see?)

by princepixel



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Abstract, Ambiguity, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Anxiety, Blood, Depression, Established Relationship, Existential Crisis, Existentialism, Extended Metaphors, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Open to Interpretation, Poetic, Poetry, artsy experiments woo, up to u tbh LMAO, vent - Freeform, wow these are fun tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-22
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2019-07-15 11:04:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16061801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princepixel/pseuds/princepixel
Summary: jaemin is missed opportunities. jaemin is staying in on a friday night, a hand reaching out just as another falls out of frame, grazing each other, just an instant too late. he is dropped connections, television static, pruned fingertips from being left out in the rain, messages in a bottle that never wash up on land, skipped meals, garbled phone calls and texts that never send.Xit starts at four thirty eight in the morning.





	fly on the wall (tell me, what do you see?)

**Author's Note:**

> wassup back at it again with the strange abstract norenmin shit i churn out in like two hours
> 
> can be read as a prequel to my fic "plummet as i sing (oh, bring me back to you)" depending on how you interpret both of them. i think this one is a little clearer than that one but i have literally no clue. read tags!!
> 
> HIGHLY !!!!!! reccomend listening to the zankyou no terror soundtrack while reading, especially [bless](https://soundcloud.com/zankyou-no-terror/sets/all-soundtracks-playlist)
> 
> enjoy (?)

_do you promise?_

  
  
**X**

 

it starts at four thirty eight in the morning.

 

jaemin is cold. jaemin is drenched in rain.

 

jeno and renjun are mad at him, clearly. they won't look him in the eyes.

 

(they don't look anywhere in particular, actually. their eyes dart around the room-- skirting each other, skirting each object in the room, always moving always exhausted, but never landing. they are malfunctioning boomerangs, thrown but failing to return. where did they go?)

 

jaemin stares into the road.

 

where are they going?

 

he leans one elbow on the doorframe, peering into the room. the world feels unsteady under his feet, the magician pulling the tablecloth out from underneath the dishes balanced precariously on the edge.

 

the dishes clatter to the floor. the magician is glitching.

 

scratch. rewind.

 

the dishes clatter to the floor. they don't make it to the ground.

 

scratch. rewind.

 

the dishes clatter to the floor. jaemin is drenched in blood.

 

scratch. rewind.

 

the dishes clatter to the floor. renjun stares at them resolutely, not even bothering to try to catch them as they splinter and shatter to the ground. jaemin peers at them. they're his favorites, the dishes with hearts and swirls patterned on them. they're hand painted, jaemin found them sitting in a dusty corner during someone's garage sale. they came in a set of three.

 

now they are broken.

 

after the crash, jeno shoulders past jaemin and into the kitchen. they both look at renjun, head down, chin wobbling, chest rising and falling sharply. he's knelt by the remnants of the dish set, frantically trying to piece it back together.

 

"it's okay, they're just plates," jaemin says but he can't quite get the words out. there's something dark and stabbing in his chest.

 

it doesn't matter if he had spoken his mind or not. renjun wouldn't have bothered to listen, anyways.

 

"it's okay. they're just plates," jeno echoes jaemin, stepping forwards to grab onto renjun's hands. "they're just plates. please don’t cry."

 

renjun opens his mouth to speak but chokes on his own sobs. there are tiny trickles of blood running down his smooth, pretty palms where porcelain broke china.

 

"weak." the words fall out of jaemin's mouth before he even registers that he's speaking. renjun buries his face in jeno's shoulder as he cries.

 

weak. jaemin wipes the rain from above his eyebrows. _weak._

 

the clock chimes behind him. it's four o'clock. jeno glares at jaemin. he should be more upset with the fact that jeno is angry at him, but he's just relieved to have any type of interaction with them. they won't stop ignoring him.

 

"it's getting late." whispers renjun. jaemin shivers.

 

_it's getting late, huh, jaemin? where are you going?_

 

_nowhere special._

 

weak. jaemin wipes the blood from above his eyebrows as he watches renjun cry in jeno's arms. _weak._ renjun isn't even bleeding that much. not compared to jaemin, but neither of them care.

 

haze fills the room. jaemin feels light headed.

 

"you shouldn't be in here in the middle of the night anyways." jeno lightly reprimands renjun.

 

the dishes lay in piles, left on the kitchen floor as jeno shepherds renjun into bed. they leave him out there, swinging his legs from the countertops as the clock ticks onward.

 

weak, jaemin, weak. you hurt everyone you love.

  
  
                                                                                                                  .   .   .

 

jeno is angry.

 

jeno rarely gets angry. in all the years jaemin has known jeno (many years, many shared laughs and cries and dripping ice cream cones and failed tests after staying up all night whispering into the dark, many movie marathons and sitting just a little bit too close, many stolen kisses under the privacy of night and hands brushing against each other, many secrets and many, many more lies)--

 

jeno rarely gets angry.

 

jeno is soft smiles, standing under the drizzling rain, the scratch of pen against paper, secret hideouts and the thrill of sneaking out at night, butterflies in your stomach and the burst of bubble tea behind your teeth, a text out of the blue when you feel lonely. jeno is difficult nights knowing exactly what to say, a lingering hug, home cooked food, fields of roses and the feeling of sand between your toes, wind through your hair and the summer sun. jeno is cotton balls and pink lipstick, glow sticks and deep bass and guitar strings and sticky notes and endless i love you’s.

 

jeno is not sharp edges and violence.

 

the last time jeno got angry at jaemin was when he came home drenched in rain.

 

thwack. jeno throws a punch to the punching bag, recoiling as he shakes out his hand.

 

it was four o'clock in the morning.

 

thwack.

 

_why are you home so late?_

 

jeno huffs and readjusts his gloves, rolling out a kink in his neck as he goes to get a swig of water.

 

_answer the damn question, jaemin._

 

jaemin sits cross legged in the corner of the room, idly tracing patterns in the dust. he had snuck in while jeno's back was turned, and he believes jeno still hasn't taken notice of him. it's better this way. jaemin figures jeno wouldn't appreciate seeing him here. he flinches with every hit.

 

thwack.

 

_didn't i tell you to stop overworking yourself?_

 

there's a fire in jeno's eyes that jaemin has never seen before. there's something feral, something broken in there. he knows it's jeno, god, _somewhere_ in there is jeno, but he can't recognize him.

 

_you could've gotten hurt._

 

instead of jeno's warm brown eyes boring into him as they hum stories of the sun falling in love with the moon and the stars to each other, his gaze is sharp and cold and ruthless, it is the metal pricking into his stomach, the blood dripping down his sides.

 

it isn't jeno. those are jeno's lips and jeno's eyebrows and jeno's cheekbones but those eyes do not belong to jeno. those eyes slice through the night. they are hungry. they are predators prowling through the witching hours.

 

thwack.

 

those eyes glint at him from the mouth of an alleyway. those eyes are the churning feeling in jaemin's stomach as he walks just a little faster.

 

thwack.

 

those eyes track him as he moves. those eyes melt into footsteps always lingering just a step behind him no matter how many turns he takes.

 

thwack.

 

there is blood and broken bone in those eyes. jaemin can see it reflected in the dim glow of street lamps, flickering out one by one.

 

thwack.

 

jaemin is scared.

 

thwack.

 

_you don't care._

 

thwack.

 

_sorry._

 

thwack.

 

_you aren't._

 

thwack.

 

_sorry._

 

jaemin waves at the haze filling the room. now isn't the time. he feels dizzy. jeno delivers a firm roundhouse kick to the bag. jaemin cowers as it flies towards him.

 

_stop doing that! just-- take care of yourself!_

 

_okay, okay fine. i will._

 

jeno still doesn't notice him. the patterns in the dust turn to names. jeno accidentally knocks his water bottle over, and it rolls in jaemin's direction.

 

_please, we...we need you._

 

cold metal. jaemin feels a prickling in his side. rain slides down his nose. jeno never used plastic water bottles. always cared about the environment too much.

 

cold metal. jaemin is drenched.

 

_i know. i’ll be better._

 

jaemin jolts to his feet and scrambles out the door as jeno storms over to retrieve his things. he crouches down to pick up the bottle, but pauses. jaemin watches from outside the room, but it feels no different from when he was inside.

 

_don't lie to me._

 

jeno looms over the corner, dark shadow stretching and pulling like taffy stuck in jaemin's teeth.

 

_nana + junnie + jen = <3 _

 

he growls, scuffing his heel into the corner and wiping away the words.

 

_don't lie to me._

 

"sick fucking joke." jeno swings his bag over his shoulder and shoves the door open with one hand. jaemin presses himself flush against the wall, nearly getting crushed by the door, and slips back inside as soon as jeno leaves.

 

jeno forgets his water bottle.

 

the studio clicks shut, locking up for the night. the motion lights turn off and jaemin can't seem to get them to come back on. the night wraps its sweet arms around his shoulders. the clock strikes four am.

 

jeno is gone. it's just jaemin, the cool metal pressed to his stomach, the glowing eyes, and the sad streaks in the dust.

 

  
                                                                                                                  .   .   .

 

where jeno is anger and crashing waves, white caps and rip tides, whipping winds and angler fish, renjun is the marianas trench. he is the ocean floor. he is emptiness. he is frigid water in the middle of winter. he is the bottom of the ocean, burying his pains and troubles far, far, far down, deep enough that to bring them to light any human would be killed by the weight of the water around them. he drowns his sorrows not in alcohol, not in water, but in sand.

 

he is quiet, the stillness of night. he is swimming out past the drop off, tasting oblivion as you drift past the boundaries of known and unknown, moral and immoral, transcending mere good and bad.

 

jeno is old memories aged yellow with time, flickering silent movies and the light of a single night light, but renjun is new memories, fresh tea and the scent of lemons, wild thoughts and wild hearts, strong wills lead by a strong mind. renjun is stray cats winding around your legs, pinkies linked as you walk, pressed button downs and clean laundry. he is a well protected safe, existential crises, fleeting touches and strawberries and cream and late movie nights, deep dives into the universe and the pressure of lips grazing foreheads, grazing earlobes grazing thumbs grazing jaws nose eyelids dimples, wherever they can reach. renjun is midnight, confidence and purple nail polish and old books, the gentle ripple of a pond, a slightly crooked smile, bright eyes and loving gaze.

 

_you forgot our anniversary?_

 

renjun is painting. jaemin approaches him carefully. even on a good day, on good terms renjun doesn't like being disturbed while painting, but jaemin figures there's not much he can do to make matters worse, so why not try?

 

renjun is shaking. the lines are shaky and uneven, globs of paint overloaded on some areas of the canvas, dry brush strokes marring others. jaemin can't tell from this angle what he's trying to paint.

 

_i didn't, junnie! i would never!_

 

normally when renjun makes art, he is calm, calculated, all smooth seas and skilled fingers. everything about him now is frantic, choppy, waves rushing towards a waterfall, crescendoing to a grand ending. this renjun...

 

_how am i supposed to know that?_

 

jaemin doesn't recognize this renjun either.

 

renjun jabs the paintbrush into the palette, mixing roughly, violently, desperately, tears brimming in his eyes. he flings an arm towards the board, not even looking at where he's recklessly splashing colors, throwing his emotions onto the paper.

 

_please know. i'll always love you guys._

 

where jeno's eyes are cold, renjun's are vacant.

 

_you better._

 

renjun steps aside for a brief moment, revealing the scrambled half finished painting. a faint figure is taking shape in the middle, one with a shock of pink hair and heart shaped lips, smiling ever widely, ever brightly.

 

_always._

 

jaemin reaches a finger out, wanting to brush it over the slope of the figure's nose that so closely matches his own, the crinkle of their eyes that so closely matches his own. he wants to climb inside the jaemin on the paper who looks so much happier than the real one, wants to live as him, live in a world where he smiles that brightly and loves that deeply, always.

 

_always._

 

renjun raises an unsteady hand to the top of painting-jaemin's head. he dabs red onto the canvas, presumably to shade his hair, but he miscalculated how much he had, the paint too watered down. the red travels down from jaemin's scalp, arcing across his cheeks and pooling by his lips, dripping off his chin and dribbling onto his shirt until the entire picture is covered in red, red blood.

 

jaemin looks down at his hands. red, red blood.

 

"oh-- _god!_ " renjun whimpers, palm splaying flat against the canvas. red paint streaks his cheeks, his hands, his face, his heart.

 

jaemin tiptoes up to renjun, snaking a cautious arm around him. red soaks him to the bone too. together they are one soul.

 

renjun convulses violently the moment jaemin touches his skin, writhing, elbows flying as he shoves jaemin off. he's shaking even harder now, leaning over to catch his ragged breath.

 

"what are you painting, injunnie." jaemin says through a mouthful of molasses. his jaw doesn't seem to work quite right.

 

renjun won't stop shaking.

 

_always._

 

goosebumps riddle renjun's pale skin. he takes a cloth and hurls it over the canvas, hand pressed to his heart. hysterical, he stumbles over himself trying to flee the room, legs wobbling and eyes wild, chest heaving with violent sobs.

 

_i'll be right back._

 

  
                                                                                                                  .   .   .

 

 

jaemin is cold. he is drenched in water.

 

jaemin is cold. he is the cold that sneaks underneath the space between their door and their carpets. he is the cold that slips between them as they lay in each others arms at night. he is the shiver that runs down their spine as they make their coffee in the mornings. he is the draft that they can't seem to get rid of no matter how hard they try, no matter how many blankets they pile on or how far the turn up the heater.

 

jaemin is missed opportunities. jaemin is staying in on a friday night, a hand reaching out just as another falls out of frame, grazing each other, just an instant too late. he is dropped connections, television static, pruned fingertips from being left out in the rain, messages in a bottle that never wash up on land, skipped meals, garbled phone calls and texts that never send.

 

jaemin is love too grand to be returned in full, devotion too intense to be matched. he is a doomed timeline, destined to reach no end. he is the scrapped ending of every novel, the plot thread that leads nowhere, the dead end, the red herring. he feels so intensely that it is damning. each tear shed is a drop of blood that no longer runs through his veins.

 

if jeno is ocean currents and renjun is the sand that compliments it so well, jaemin is the out of place iceberg that claims lives and ruins others.

 

he feels too much.

 

he doesn't feel anything anymore.

 

  
                                                                                                                  .   .   .

 

 

_the moon needs the sun and the sun needs the moon, but who really needs the stars?_

 

 

  
                                                                                                                  .   .   .

 

 

 

jeno is smiles and sweetness and renjun is laughter and support and together they are home.

 

they are home, and jaemin is the fly on the wall looking in.

 

  
                                                                                                                  .   .   .

 

 

jeno drapes the blanket over renjun's arm, tangling a hand in his hair. he mumbles into renjun's neck. jaemin watches from the adjacent couch. he would join them, but they didn't leave any room for him.

 

"i'm sorry i hurt you." jaemin croaks.

 

"shut up." renjun closes his eyes as if in pain. jaemin happily obliges.

 

the dishes splinter. there's a piece missing.

 

he watches as renjun rises from the couch and fiddles with the stack of dvds by the television. hesitantly, he draws one out from the pile and puts it into the slot. the opening credits for cinderella roll onto the screen.

 

and, oh. jaemin remembers this. once a month, or more often if one of them was having a particularly difficult time, they would marathon disney princess movies.

 

prince charming will find his true love, his happy ending, by the end of the movie. jaemin is hidden in the deleted scenes. jaemin is the last chapter torn out of the book, the epilogue that was never written, the final draft left pending. his happy ending is laying six feet under the waves, ink streaking and bleeding into the water.

 

jaemin shifts. his side is bleeding into the couch. he thinks they’re watching the movie, but all he sees is static.

 

porcelain shatters into the tile floor. they were a set of three.

 

jeno settles into renjun's arms. jaemin wraps his arms around himself. he shivers.

 

the magician covers his eyes.

 

they were a set of three.

 

_peekaboo!_

 

now they are broken.

 

no one sleeps that night. like clockwork, on the hour, jeno and renjun melt from the couch to put in the next movie. they rotate for hours and hours, stuck sitting on opposite sides of the record as it spins round and round. jaemin is frozen in the middle, watching them as they whirl past.

 

he wishes they would stop giving him the cold shoulder.

 

why won't you speak to me? he wants to yell, he wants to scream, he wants to hold their hands and smother them in lavish gifts and sweet date nights and he wants to kiss them and snuggle into their arms like they are with each other but he can't. he can't.

 

the dish shatters. there's a piece missing.

 

scratch. rewind.

 

jaemin slinks off the chair, wispy like a shadow. gently, gently, he steps towards them. the breeze carries him closer. closer. closer.

 

please look at me. i'm sorry i hurt you. please don't ignore me.

 

jaemin settles on the floor below them, head resting back on the couch, nestled as close to them as he can get. they don't twist away from him in disgust, which he counts as a plus, but they still refuse to end the silent treatment.

 

i don't understand. he whispers weakly. please love me again.

 

weak. weak. weak.

 

  
                                                                                                                  .   .   .

 

_1 + 1 + 1 = 2_

 

  
                                                                                                                  .   .   .

  
  


_jaemin? where did you go?_

 

yes, where did you go, jaemin? jaemin asks himself as he stares down into the alleyway. the hungry eyes flash at him from the dark, peeking up from below the caution tape.

 

_i'm sure he's fine, injunnie. it's not the first time he's lied about where he’s gone._

 

jaemin sidesteps the tape. haze fills his eyes but he doesn't need sight to guide him to the corner he knows no one ever dared to touch.

 

_jeno, i don't have a good feeling about this._

 

click.

 

_hello, are you the significant others of na jaemin?_

 

jaemin trails a hand against the brick wall. he wishes they would look him in the eye, just once. he knows he hurt them, but do they have to be this angry?

 

_jeno! he--_

 

where did you go, jaemin?

 

thwack.

 

the dishes clatter to the floor.

 

_i know junnie, i-- i know..._

 

he stops in the shadowy corner. there are no words written into the dirt. here is where he left the bag with two bouquets of roses, two letters, and three rings, to rot in the rain.

 

now, the roses are likely wilted, the letters soaked and illegible, the rings rusted and grimy.

 

regardless of their filth, their obscurity, the bag turns up on their doorstep the next morning. renjun and jeno dump the contents onto the kitchen table and hold each other as they cry. jaemin forces them to separate a bit as he wiggles in between them so they can hold him too. they still won't speak to him, even after the pretty gifts, even after apology after apology spills from his lips to deaf ears in the dead of night.

 

jaemin's love breathes and moves and lives, with new vessels to hold it.

 

he feels dizzy.

 

why is he alone? where did they go?

 

_it's late. where are you going, jaemin?_

 

_you'll see._

 

jaemin tips his head back to catch the rain in his eyelashes. beads of water glimmer, caught in the corner of his eyes. they slide down his cheek, tinted red with blood.

 

_til death do us part, right?_

 

darkness pulls at his limbs, dragging him deeper and deeper into the water. haze fills his lungs. his ears sink below the surface, gritty sand and sea water rushing into his mouth, washing out the pleas and hopes and the look at me please i told you i'm sorry i told you i'm so sorry--

 

_come home safe._

 

water swirls in him, around him, taking him apart and putting him back together all wrong. the sea is salty but the taste in his mouth is bitter. the taste in his mouth is emptiness.

 

jaemin is cold. he is drenched in water.

 

jaemin lifts a hand and watches it dissolve into the waves. he allows the spray to swallow him whole.

 

_i will. i always do._

 

it ends in the rain.

 

_promise?_

 

it ends with a flatline.

 

_promise?_

 

it ends at four thirty eight in the morning.

 

**X**

 

_i promise._

 

**Author's Note:**

> ya..........just one of those nights where you just kinda put your brain on autopilot and write whatever comes thru ur fingers u know? i really have no idea how this turned out and stuff like this can be very much a hit or miss (i feel like ive been getting a lot of misses lately with my stuff idk) but i figured id share it anyways. this writing style is a lot of fun and freeing, and ive had such a Long Week omg college stem classes are DRAINING
> 
> i usually like to write in renjuns pov but like......hes hurt enough in fics so i gave him a break in this one lmao
> 
> let me know what you think!!! <3 see u in the next one mwah love u all!!!
> 
> twitter: pixeljunnie  
> curiouscat: pixinoa  
> tellonym: diotima


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